Thursday, October 23, 2008

Why should rape accusers be exempt from polygraphs?

In a recent news story from Michigan (reprinted below) men accused of rape were not charged because they passed polygraph tests.

And what if they had refused to take the polygraphs? Well, it is no stretch to assume they would still be in jail.

There is, of course, no guarantee that men accused of rape will be offered the opportunity to take a polygraph test, or that they would be released from jail even if they pass the polygraph test. But if given the chance, men accused of rape had better take the test if they want to be released from jail.

So why aren't rape accusers required to take polygraphs? Well, even though the tests are considered in some sense valid when men accused of rape are asked to take them, the women who accuse the men of rape say they should be exempt from taking them. You see, rape victims' advocates have lobbied state and local governments "to ban or discourage police from asking rape accusers to take polygraph tests. They have contended that women will be discouraged from reporting sexual assaults if police don't simply take them at their word, without question." S. Taylor, KC Johnson, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, 378 (2007).

No one is interested in causing undue stress to persons who have traumatized by a rape. But is a polygraph more stressful to a rape accuser than a stint in jail is to an innocent man falsely accused?

The question scarcely survives its statement.

And if you don't think it's common that innocent men are jailed for rapes they didn't commit, spend several hours reading this Web site to see the actual news accounts of that very thing happening. And then read the objective sources that place false rape claims anywhere from nine to more likely closer to fifty percent.

If a polygraph would keep an innocent man from languishing in jail, we should not exempt rape accusers from polygraph tests. Let us be blunt: if the insistence that rape accusers submit to a polygraph test keeps a hypothetical rape victim from "coming forward" resulting in a rapist remaining at large, as terrible as that is, that result is preferable to allowing an innocent man to be jailed for a crime he did not commit. That is really the bottom line. (Some radical feminists do not agree with that, which tells us everything we need to know about their vile agenda.)

The fact of the matter is that polygraphs are routinely used by law enforcement officials, and they are a particularly important tool in one specific area of the criminal justice system -- insuring that sex offenders (who, incidentally, are predominantly male) are adhering to the terms of their probation. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, for example, has upheld the use of polygraphs for this purpose, saying that polygraph testing "produces an incentive to tell the truth, and thereby advances the sentencing goals." The vast majority of states require polygraphs for use when it comes to sex offenders. Thus, polygraphs are perfectly acceptable when used on men who want to avoid a vile sex charge. Do you see the pattern here? Let's spell it out:

Polygraphs: good, when men are asked to take them to help law enforcement officials discern if they've committed a vile sex crime;

Polygraphs: bad, when women are asked to take them to help law enforcement officials discern if they are lying about being victimized by a man's alleged vile sex crime.

This is a gross and intellectually dishonest double standard. No rationale justifies exempting rape accusers from submitting to polygraphs. Such exemption only serves to exalt the radical feminist agenda to jack up rape convictions over any concern for innocent men falsely accused of rape. But that, after is, is really the entire purpose of this immoral, politically driven double double standard, isn't it?